On Sun, 11 Jan 1998 17:58:09 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
>At 06:21 AM 1/12/98 +0800, Stephen Jones wrote:
>>On Sun, 04 Jan 1998 12:00:54 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
>>GM>Thank you for pointing out that the resolution of the fossil record is at
>>>best 10,000 years. I would like to note that the entire panoply of dog
>>>breeds have been developed over the past 10,000 years. If a future
>>>creationist only had the wolf from 10,000 years ago and a St. Bernard and
>>>Chihuahua from today, he to would then argue that there were no connecting
>>>links between the wolf and these two modern dog breeds...
>SJ>This is all very imaginative but it only clouds the issue. Firstly,
>>we are not discussing common ancestry (even the ICR believes that
>>dogs came from wolves). Secondly, it says nothing about what we are
>>discussing, namely *speciation*. All this "entire panoply of dog
>>breeds" are just varieties of the *one* interfertile species, canis
>>familiaris:
GM>and
>SJ>The point is that knowing from the fossil record that the
>>speciation event(s), that "originated" the dog "probably
>>somewhere in Eurasia 12,000 to 14,000 years ago", tells us
>>nothing about the speed of that "speciation event(s)"....Your
>>imaginary "creationist" therefore is quite entitled to believe that the
>>dog originated supernaturally and instantaneously...
GM>I don't know why this is so difficult for you to understand.
>Another gentleman didn't understand it either and we had quite a
>private discussion about it.
Great minds think alike? ;-) But I am afraid this other gentleman
is right. The original issue we were discussing was *speciation*
and the inability of the fossil record to capture events less
than "five to fifty thousand years" (Eldredge N., "Reinventing
Darwin", 1996, p99). In any event, Hsu disagrees with this
estimate, claiming that precision stratigraphy has a resolution
power to recognize events "thousands, if not hundreds, of years
in duration":
"We now know that Darwin and Lyell were wrong in their insistence
on the imperfection of the geologic record. The unconforrnity
between the Late Cretaceous and the early Tertiary cannot possibly
span 100 m.y. The record of marine life is, in terms of geologic
chronology, continuous in the deep sea. The Cretaceous/ Tertiary
boundary falls within magnetostratigraphic Chron C29R, which was
less than 0.5 m.y. in duration (Kent, 1977). The boundary is recorded
by precision stratigraphy, which has a resolution power to recognize
events thousands, if not hundreds, of years in duration (e.g., Hsu et
al., 1982)." (Hsu K.J., "Darwin's three mistakes," Geology, 1986,
Vol. 14, p534)
GM>First, no one is denying that dogs came from wolves. But we
>know that from history. Suppose all you had were the bones and
>the bones were really old. Suppose further you didn't know the
>history of the dog. In such a case, you would have difficulty saying
>that a chihuahua is related to a St. Bernard. The bone shapes are
>quite different the ratios of various skeletal measurments are quite
>different. One might note that they are related but the same
>species? Without prior knowledge, I doubt that any future person,
>creationist or evolutionists would place them in the same species.
>>REMEMBER when RESPONDING TO THIS THAT THE HISTORY
>>OF THE DOG IS UNKNOWN TO THEM. Put yourself in that position.
Yes. I have. So what is your point? Obviously if there are poorly preserved
fossils bones, it is harder to tell what species they came from. But
even if these bones were perfectly preserved, we still couldn't see
the point where the wolf-dog split happened. It could have taken
100, 5000, or 50000 years, or it could have taken only 1 year - the
fossil record cannot (unless we are incredibly lucky) reveal the
wolf-dog speciation event(s).
God bless.
Steve
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Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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